For others who may need this service in the future, here's the deal on auto shippers:
I went to the site Bryan provided in his reply to my post. It is a bid clearinghouse where you post your "haul" details and the site then sends the request for bids out to their members. Over the next two days you receive about 1/2 dozen proposals from "shippers." In my case, the proposals were all over the map, ranging from $550 to $1350 for open hauler shipping from IN to GA. There seemed to be neither rhyme nor reason to the pricing as it was all for the same basic trip.
At the same time, I contacted a couple of "specialty" haulers...Blue Highways and Horseless Carriage. They both haul cars for auction houses as well as vintage racers, etc. Blue Highways does not serve GA so that was a bust, but they do have a good reputation on RennList so if they haul to your area it might be worth checking. Horseless Carriage will do the IN to GA job for $1150 in a closed carrier. They require 7-10 days to get there and get the car moving toward you.
When you get your proposals from the "shippers" on shipvehicles.com there will be a 3 tier rating on the "shipper" for service, timeliness, and car care. I looked mine over and contacted the "shipper" with the highest rating and lowest price. In my case, it was AAALL States Auto Transport.
I called AAALL States and guess what? All these "shippers" are just brokers for the actual haulers. You contract with them and they post your job on a common board that all haulers are looking at. Then, in my case, when a hauler sees he's going through Indianaplois headed south, he takes the job off the board and goes and gets the car.
AAALL State wanted $550 for open shipping and $850 for closed. Because my 993 is a coupe, I decided to save $400 and ship open. AAALL States said that 98% of the shippers are open and 2% closed. So choosing open will get your car there a lot faster. I contracted with AAALL States on a Thursday, a hauler snagged the job on Saturday, picked the car up on Monday night and it was sitting in my drive on Tuesday afternoon.
When the driver picked up my car, AAALL States called me and I gave them a credit card # and they charged me $100 for their service. I then had the $450 balance in cash waiting for the driver when he arrived with the car....Actually I had $500...I tipped him $50....Those guys don't make squat.
When you think "auto hauler" don't limit your thinking to the industrial 10-car haulers you see on the interstate. The guy that did my haul used a three car trailer with a bobtail tractor and was hauling a Vette to Florida on the same trip. They were top notch....very careful and professional.
That's not to say that everyone is...I checked on RennList for posts on haulers and there were some horror stories on there about delays, damaged cars, etc. All haulers are supposed to carry $100,000 in liability insurance, but you still have to be careful about accepting a damaged car (Don't do it until you've talked with the home office and filed a claim), not to mention the heartburn of having your car damaged.
When I take into account the cost of flying up to Indianapolis, paying for a motel room, meals and gas for driving back, I figure shipping the car only cost me about $125 more and my time is worth more than that.
It may seem dodgy to some folks but people ship cars all the time and with no problems most of the time. I thought it was worth it.
